Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Out of the Hot Zone and Cooling His Heels

A couple of weeks ago, my mom flew to Italy because my brother Vincenzo was deployed to Liberia to build medical infrastructure to combat the Ebola outbreak, so his wife needed help taking care of the kids. Vin's deployment is over, and he is back in Italy, undergoing a three-week quarantine. Predictably, the DoD didn't provide civilian clothes or even pajamas, so my sister-in-law had to pack a bag for him and take it to post.

Mom has extended her Italy visit so that she'll be around when Vin gets out of quarantine. I've said it before, and I will say it again, but the fact that the DoD is the go-to agency to respond to a healthcare crisis demonstrates how broken our State Department is. At least guys like Vin, who is super-competent and has a genuine appreciation for the African people he has worked with for the past few years, are on the job.

What about the UN? Why are all these regional and global problems the responsibility of the US? When is the rest of the world, the EU, Japan, Latin America along with China, Russia, India and Australia going to take on some of this burden.

Your brother sounds like a solid citizen, and your Mom must be very proud of the job she did raising you and your sibs.

Yeah, mom did a great job... all of us are responsible citizens. Vin and my baby brother, Gomez, have had positively heroic careers.

What about the UN? Why are all these regional and global problems the responsibility of the US? When is the rest of the world, the EU, Japan, Latin America along with China, Russia, India and Australia going to take on some of this burden.

I'm with you 100%, but as far as the American government goes, we need to beef up the diplomatic core... maybe then we'd stop doing things so unilaterally.

You look soooooo in Italian! Lol

I'm only a quarter Italian, and my Italian forebears were from Liguria, which is about as far north as one can go. We're pretty much descendents from the Ostrogoths who ended the Roman Empire. I don't look much like a Goth, either.

Mikey, the rest of the world probably won't take on responsibilities as long as we insist on being global hegemon.

Yeah, we need to chill out and embrace multilateralism.

U. K. Service people are out there building hospitals and providing medical care. All very brave people.

About Me

The Big Bad Bald Bastard is a character played by Monsieur _______ of the City of Y______. The role of the Bastard is a handy one to play on subways, walking the streets, and in dive-bars, when being a nerdy, bookish sort is not to one's advantage.